


taught to fight, taught to win

by regulsh



Category: Rocketman (2019)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, POV Second Person, Rehabilitation, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25039726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regulsh/pseuds/regulsh
Summary: You’re no stranger to pain.
Relationships: Elton John & Bernie Taupin, Elton John/John Reid
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	taught to fight, taught to win

**Author's Note:**

> this is a work of fiction based on snippets as seen in the movie, not in any way shape or form meant to represent elton or anyone’s actual rehab journey. ft. some unhealthy/unkind perspectives from someone in that headspace

You’re no stranger to pain.

You sit on the curb and sniffle next to hastily packed suitcases, feeling every inch the failure.

-

Intake is relatively rote and polite, like it hasn’t all been worked out in advance, like you’re just another sorry so-and-so who can’t get their act together.

Which you suppose you are, actually. This humility gig does not come easy.

The facility is very clean and chilly, time dragging and skipping over the linoleum in a manner that instantly disorients you. You’re never alone, beset at every turn by swooping swinging doors and stalwart orderlies and other strung out, grim-faced frauds. 

It reminds you of your mum’s place in Pinner, of all things. All creaks and absolutely no privacy, every little sound heard from every corner of the place. Nan putting the kettle on to whistle at fuck o’clock in the morning, Derf‘s snores when he fell asleep in front of the telly late. The five of you coming and going at all hours: your mother’s demanding footsteps, Bernie’s light tread. You kept such careful track of it back then, up and down the stairs, back when it was the size of your whole universe. Always aware of where he was, the one person who you clung to as your ticket out to the rest of the world.

And then the rest of the world opened itself to you and you didn’t have to hear a single goddamned thing you didn’t want to anymore, bought a big house with loads of space for everything but anything you really wanted.

And now it’s all gone instantly, like it was never even there, thrown all your things and all your people to the wind. Where are they, where’s the rest of the world, while you’re stuck in this scrubbed-clean limbo?

Maybe toiling in their own purgatory. Bernie, back on the farm, carting around dead chickens and hoeing poor, rocky soil. Trying to coax things into life that are incapable of growing. 

Much the same as you, then.

-

Reality slowly settles in, and slow it is, because you’re exhausted and sick and miserable, all the time. Everything takes a truckload of effort; chattiness is so your M.O. but gravenly discussing your life and behavior and _feelings_ is so difficult, nothing making sense, grinding your mental gears to an awful halt. Talking fucking blows, can’t do it, can’t do anything properly.

(You fiddle with the washing machine for long minutes in a cold sweat, and another person comes up to you and says so kindly _Do you know what you’re doing?_ and you don’t know how to begin to respond.)

On the whole, you sleep dreamlessly. You’re very tired. It feels like you do nothing all day but busy your hands with menial chores, sit around and talk, but you’re more drained than when you’ve leapt around stages for hours a day.

(But how could you ever be tired from that, really? The hottest most outrageous most sizzling feeling in the world, no false moves and joy and sex thrown at you from every angle under the lights and for long hours after, and it just—helped, to get high, so you could meet the moment properly, make everything blur and shine. It won’t be the same now. Can’t be the same. How are you supposed to do your job? How are you supposed to make anything special?)

You dream, once—

You dream you’re at a fantastic soirée just for you, and there is light and music and the most fascinating people you’ve ever wanted to meet, and you are holding a single champagne flute that you are gripping tighter and tighter, you can’t let it go, squeezing the delicate glass so hard in your sore fist that it should shatter and slice you open, but it doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter, because you drop it anyway. It slides like a whisper out of your hand.

-

You’re no stranger to pain, but the withdrawal is the absolute worst of it, the heart pounding and the sweats and the shakes. The searing itch of wanting it, anything, to put a wool blanket on the fire. Smother your anxieties in a fine buzz.

No.

The worst is the emotional excavation, which you do your damnedest to resist at first. You’ve been able to evade so much for so long, a fabulous bulletproof strategy, quirk your eyebrows or make a glib comment and grease the real emotion of the moment, slide right over it to rapturous laughter and applause, and nobody says boo. 

And when that doesn’t work, when people deign to call you out on it here, you pack your bags and pout on the sidewalk. Giving up, game over.

But you’ve never been anything less than willful and decide to buck up, throw yourself into the process. Best to do it all at once, so you can fucking get on with it. 

It’s so tempting, the idea that you can shed all your troubles instantaneously, like dropping an enormous coat. (That one frigid Surrey winter when the heat was out and a serviceman couldn’t get there until morning and you threw an absolute fit before pulling out your biggest fur, sable that weighed a million pounds shipped from Padova, and fucked your boyfriend-cum-manager-cum-tormentor underneath it until you were both sweaty enough to fall asleep, everything smelling of musk. The memory has you wake up one night twisting your fingers in the bedsheets and gasping, but without that particularly hateful twinge of need accompanying it, and you consider that some small amount of progress.)

You’re told over and over that it’s not like that, though. Not one graceful swoop of absolution. You’ve got to take it a day at a time, not be party to your every impulsive whim, however long it takes, work hard at something _for once in your fucking life_ —

And you’ve got to stop letting the voices of others clang in your head, punishing yourself like that.

Browbeaten into patience, and forgiveness, and kindness. Such a thing.

-

You spend so long emerging from a fog, days and weeks, hating your own weakness and confusion. Asked very simple questions about things you’ve done, asked _why?_ , and you who had the world by the bollocks has to shift and mutter _I don’t know_. Listening to the others helps, oddly enough; absorbed by stories and peeking into the window of other peoples’ dysfunctions, gripped with sympathy and hot waves of guilt at your own selfishness.

The counsellor says to you once _Imagine what it would feel like to release yourself from the burden of judgement, from the burden of shame_. And you almost laugh out loud, because that is perhaps the last thing anyone would accuse you of. You’ve never touched shame with a ten foot pole, entirely unabashed about the things you like and the things you do not like.

And then you remember your spitting and rabbit-quick heartbeat at the start when the group dared pry the littlest bit under your rug, the fucking Sistine Chapel of lies you decorated your own skull with, the dark empty secret hole you happily sat in and would have stayed in until it killed you.

And you try.

-

The truth is, you’ve had an easy map to follow for as long as you can remember. The surrounds might change but there is always the same path, coke to be sourced and booze to be poured and food to delight and disgust in and exquisite things to own and beautiful dazzled men with deft hands and mouths who you try to own and when you bother to lift your head later, if you bother to lift your head, things feel different. Not better, maybe, but at least different. And then it all went from _un petit divertissement_ to a routine, a necessity, and the men became more quick to leave when you were done, and you were quicker still to retreat to the same old chemical comforts, more of them, and more often than not. Swim through the river of death again and again and beat your chest, crow triumphant at the other end.

But you’re not triumphant. You’ve followed that same map every day, over and over, and every time you’ve only ended up lost and terrified and alone. 

You don’t know another way. You need a new map to get you through. But you can’t draw a new one, not by yourself, not in uncharted territory. You need help.

-

You don’t get outside much. It’s quiet, apart from the occasional singing birds, the gently ruffling breeze; even the great outdoors tamed and heeled to a more reasonable behavior here. 

You whinge about the cafe food, purposefully nasty comments, and Bernie who came to see you, _came_ to see _you_ , chuckles beside you. 

It’s—

Impossible, to describe how it felt to see him. You had started to weave together your own world within these walls, forbidden from any external contact for so long. Built something safe and new, regimented your brain with rules and schedules and grey walls. 

And then you turned around and couldn’t have been more astounded to see an intruder that may as well have dropped clear from the sky; someone you _know_ , here. (To say that Bernie is _someone you know_ is the most horrific lie. Together you’ve been children, and men, and the love is a pain in your heart it’s so sharp. You could weep from the sheer fact of knowing him, and being known.)

And suddenly it all collapsed together, to see him here. To know that your life wasn’t over, or just beginning, but rather that there might be people on both sides of it, still there, waiting for you. 

Waiting to embrace you.

And Bernie sits with you and hums and makes small talk before he gently unpicks your every little seam. Feeling naked by the time he’s done making his pointed wry observations, coat shed and shivering.

And then as easy as ever, he gets up.

And you’re freezing cold, and your heart bangs in your chest as you panic and say _Don’t go_ —

But Bernie just says _This is the part you’ve got to do on your own_.

And you could throttle him, you really could, furious, you’ve known more loneliness than anyone so why do you have to do this alone, it’s entirely unfair. You have the instinct to sob and bury your face in his chest, beg for him to stay.

Emotional volatility. Bang on about that one, they did warn you.

So instead you just politely take what he hands you. It crinkles, you’re clenching it so hard in your hand.

And you breathe out, and you thank him, and he smiles and goes.

-

You look down at the parchment. You don’t have to do this part on your own, not really. You’ve got a map.

-

You sit in the sunshine, underneath the singing birds, and remember what you had before, and will never have again. Life will never be so low again. You might feel awful, but you won’t punish yourself over it. You might feel alone, but you know how to and _want to_ connect to people. You might feel lost, but now you have a map to follow, a good, new one: your true desires, your true beliefs, zinging through your veins, through blood that’s cleaner than it has been in years. You know, now. You can start to trust yourself. You don’t know what you’re doing, and maybe you never quite will, but you know you’re facing the right direction.

You sit on the bench, unsteady, and shudder just a little more, wracked with the ghosts of sobs you won’t let loose. 

Then stand, to go inside. Might as well get to work.


End file.
